Nutritional Assessment/Requirements Flashcards
Initial Pathway Steps
- Admission: Get height, weight, BMI
- Nutrition Screen within 24 hours
- Suspected Malnutrition?
Yes => Nutrition Assessment
No => Reassess in 3-7 days
Nutritionally-at-risk Factors
- Involuntary loss of >= 10% body weight within 6 months
- Involuntary loss of >=5% of usual body weight in 1 month
- Involuntary loss or gain of 10 lbs within 6 months
- BMI <18.5 or >25
- Chronic Disease
- Increased metabolic requirements
- Altered diets or diet schedules
- Inadequate nutrition intake, including no food or nutritional products for > 7 days
Assessment of Nutritional Status
- History and clinical diagnosis
- Physical exam/clinical signs
- Anthropometric data
- Labs
- Food/nutrition intake (history, calorie counts, diet, etc.)
- Functional assessment
Exam/Clinical Signs Gathered
Exams
- Weight loss/gain
- Fluid Retention
- Loss of muscle/fat
Clinical Signs
-Inflammation: fever/hypothermia, tachycardia, hyperglycemia
Anthropometric Data
- Weight: unintended weight loss if a validated indicator of malnutrition (measure at admission and repeat frequently)
- Height
- BMI: malnutrition can occur at any BMI
Weight Alone Problems
- Doesn’t provide body composition information
- Loss of serum proteins associated with ECF expansion
- Concomitant diseases (CHF, ARF, Cirrhosis) associated with increased ECF
Labs
- Markers of inflammation: elevated CRP, WBC, blood glucose levels
- Negative nitrogen balance: sometimes support systemic inflammatory response (nitrogen from urine over 24 hours)
Protein and Nitrogen Balance
- Nitrogen is a component of all amino acids
- Nitrogen Balance (NB) is difference between dietary nitrogen intake and nitrogen losses
- NB is a good marker for adequate protein intake
- Little evidence for using NB
NB
- NB = total protein intake (g)/6.25 - (UNN+4)
- Positive NB: patient excretes less N than they consume (using N in new proteins)
- Negative NB: excretes more N than they consume (use muscle as energy source)
- May be useful to know but not common in practice
Food/Nutrition Intake
-Get information from patient or caregiver
Methods to help determine inadequate intake:
- 24 hour recall
- Modified diet history
- Calorie count
- Prior documentation of periods of inadequate food intake in medical record
Functional Assessment
- Handgrip strength: documents decline in physical function
- Don’t use in ICU patients
Short Term “Simple” Undernutrition
- < 72 hours
- Glycogen rapidly depleted (insulin levels fall, glycogen levels increase)
- FFA liberated, proteins undergo gluconeogenesis
- Body adapts to using FFA/ketones (glucose needs decrease)
- Metabolic rate decreases
- Serum proteins maintained
- Easily reversed with feeds (oral/enteral)
Metabolic Stress/Stress Undernutrition
- > 72 hours
- Cytokines released
- Increased catecholamines, glucocorticoids, GH
- Increased inflammation markers (CRP)
- Insulin resistance associated with hyperglycemia
- Metabolic rate increased
- Accelerated protein catabolism (more nitrogen in urine)
- Not reversed by simply feeding
Malnutrition Key Points
- Nutrition imbalance leads to multiple abnormalities: inadequate intake/increased requirements, impaired absorption, altered nutrient transport and/or utilization
- Patients may present with conditions that are inflammatory, hypercatabolic, and/or hypermetabolic
- Can be caused by long term starvation/undernutrition, chronic diseases, or acute injuries
- Inflammation is important factor for increasing risk of malnutrition
Malnutrition Evaluation
- Energy/nutrition intake - % of energy requirement taken in during last week/month
- Weight loss - % lost over period of time
- Fluid accumulation: generalized or localized
- Loss of body fat
- Loss of muscle mass
Malnutrition Diagnosis
- Severe protein-calorie malnutrition: meets at least 2 criteria from malnutrition criteria table
- Protein-calorie malnutrition: meets 2 criteria from non-severe column OR 1 criteria from severe and 1 from non-severe
Clinical Consequences of Malnutrition
- Decrease immune function: primary decreases in cell-mediated immunity
- Decreased muscle function (skeletal, respiratory, cardiac)
- Decreased wound healing (fistula formation, wound dehiscence, abscess formation, anastomotic breakdown
Fistula Formation
- Abnormal connection that connects two organs/vessels that don’t normally connect
- Complications: significant fluid/electrolyte/minerals/protein loss, dehydration, imbalances, malnutrition
Wound Dehiscence
- Partial or total separation of previously approximated wound edges: failure of proper wound healing
- Clinical significance: poor perfusion, infection risk, malnutrition
- May require another surgery to fix
Physiologic Energy Needs
- Energy required for all metabolic processes, growth, repair, and activity
- Body will utilize its tissue for fuel if energy isn’t provided (catabolism)
- Results in depletion of body cell mass and complications of malnutrition
BMR
- Basal metabolic rate: energy required to maintain body cell mass and basal organ functions
- Estimated with REE (resting energy expenditure) in hospitalized patients
Determining REE
- Predictive Equations: Harris-Benedict (adjusted BW for obese), Mifflin-St. Jeor, Ireton-Hones, Penn State (ventilated patients)
- Indirect Calorimetry (IC) - measure energy expenditure, considered gold standard for hospitalized patients, cost/availability limit use
Harris-Benedict Equation
- REE = BMR * Stress/Activity Factor
- Activity factor varies from Sedentary to Extreme Activity
- Units: kcal/day
Limitations of REE Equation
- No equation is more accurate than IC
- Hundreds of equations posts, all 40-75% accurate
- Even less accurate in obese and underweight patients
- Poor accuracy due to non-static variables (weight, medications, body temp)